“If I die young, bury me in satin, lay me down on a bed of roses, sink me in the river at dawn, send me away with the words of a love song.”
-The Band Perry
It’s been a little over three months, so I figure it’s about time I tell the story of Taylor Lackey and what she meant to me.
I used to babysit Taylor. She was 9, I was 13. We didn’t talk a lot; at that point in our lives, we were both a bit shy. I don’t know if she was only shy around me or if it was something she eventually grew out of, but that’s how things were at the time. I remember the nickname Tater Tot and sometimes I wonder if anyone else ever called her that. I remember playing Neopets and Bratz dolls and watching Degrassi and Ed, Edd, and Eddy. I remember sometimes Tay would start feeling sick and she’d ask for her mom, and I remember feeling frustrated because I didn’t know how to comfort her. Her Facebook page says that her mom meant the world to her, so I imagine that even when she got older Taylor still looked to her mother for comfort.
I’ve learned a lot about who Taylor was as a fourteen year old from her Facebook page –from the pictures, her info page, and her friends’ posts. I found out that Taylor loved to write and was passionate about music. I learned that she hated conflict and believed in peace and God. She loved to have a good time and knew how to make people laugh. I learned that she had big plans for her future. She wanted to do well in high school, get into college, and become a journalist. Despite those plans, she worried about the future and how she would turn out.
I remember when Taylor died. It’s hard to forget when it plays over and over in my head like a bad movie. I was at home in Waupun, it was two days after Christmas, it was around noon, and I was watching YouTube videos in bed. My mom had gone on a call as an EMT earlier that morning and when I saw that she was calling me I assumed she was going to ask me to meet her for lunch. Instead, she sounded as though she had been crying. She started off by saying that she had something to tell me that she didn’t want me to find out from anyone else. She asked if I remembered Taylor Lackey and suddenly I became choked up. Mom explained that Taylor had been in a car accident that morning and that she had passed away. The tears were instant. We wrapped up the conversation and I shut myself in the bathroom for a couple minutes so that I could cry alone. For the rest of the afternoon I sat in bed watching the news spread across Facebook, staring at Tay’s page in utter disbelief. The next two days I spent a lot of time in bed.
Those two days in bed I tried to remember everything I could about Taylor and I attempted to understand why her death in particular was hitting me so hard. My freshman year of high school a senior, Mike Smits, died. I cried a little bit when I found out just because I felt like I never got a chance to know him, but it was pretty easy for me to get past that. With Taylor it wasn’t so easy. I felt like those nights I spent babysitting her gave us some sort of connection. I felt like I was losing someone I thought I knew, only to find out that I didn’t really know her and now it was too late.
By the end of those two days, I was exhausted. In the four months leading up to that tragic December morning, I had been struggling with depression. My first semester of college had shaken up my life. I felt confused, lonely, stressed, and altogether unhappy. But Tay’s death changed all of that. I read a C.S. Lewis quote once that said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” God was shouting to me in my pain. It was like someone was screaming, “Look at Taylor. She was living life and now she can’t. You’re the one who’s still alive and you’ve been walking around feeling sorry for yourself. Knock it off. Go out and live.” After that I told myself that I would start living. Every day since then I wake up and make a conscious decision to appreciate all that I am and all that I’ve been given. I’ve relearned how to love life because that’s what Taylor did. Although I’m sure a lot of people still question why God took such a beautiful girl so young, I know that there’s a purpose in it. I’ve seen it.
